A new staging of Benjamin Britten’s 1964 opera “Curlew River,” starring famed British tenor Ian Bostridge, and a production by avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson of the absurdist comedy “The Old Woman,” starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, are on tap as part of Cal Performances’ 2014-15 season, announced today.

The rich new season is marked by beloved “regulars” on the Cal Performances turf — Mark Morris Dance Group, Yo-Yo Ma, the Kronos Quartet and Alvin Ailey American Theater, among others — and some artists audiences have not seen in quite a while, or ever before. Including:

Famed German dance company Sasha Waltz and Guests marks its first visit to Cal Performances in a decade to perform Waltz’s 2004 Schubert-inspired work “Impromptus” (Oct. 25).

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra lands for a three-day mini-residency to focus on the works of Berkeley composer John Adams (March 20-22, 2015).

The Australian Ballet brings its new take on Graeme Murphy’s “Swan Lake,” accompanied by the Berkeley Symphony (Oct. 16-19).

In the Nile Project, more than a dozen musicians and singers from Sudan, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda team to present an evening of music inspired by the great river and the cultures it has served (Feb. 19, 2015).

In a work co-commissioned by Cal Performances, the acclaimed Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa delivers its Apartheid-themed work “Ubu and the Truth Commission,” featuring puppets, live actors and animation (May 1-3, 2015).

Bay Area artists are well-represented in the new season.

Steven Schick and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will present Project TenFourteen, a four-performance series, interspersed through the season, that will feature world premieres of works from 10 composers — George Crumb, Ken Ueno, De Yun, Agata Zibel, among others — performed alongside contemporary masterworks. The series kicks off Nov. 16. Schick is also the curator of this year’s Cal Performances/Ojai Music Festival collaboration, Ojai North, coming in Berkeley in June.

And Bay Area composers/musicians Amy X Neuburg and Paul Dresher will perform newly commissioned works from 10 composers in a world premiere multimedia work titled “They Will Have Been So Beautiful: Songs and Images of Now” (Dec. 5-6).